In the gloom of the mid-world’s rim;
From the door of Night as a ray of light
Leapt over the twilight brim,
And launching his bark like a silver spark
From the golden-fading sand
Down the sunlit breath of Day’s fiery Death
He sped from Westerland.
10 splendour] glory
11 wandered] went wandering
16 streaming] Evening
17 Unheeding] But unheeding
18 wayward] wandering
19 endless] magic darkling] darkening
20 O’er the margin] Toward the margent
22 And the dusk] To the dusk
25 The Ship] For the Ship
31 blazing] skiey
32 timbered] orbйd
Then Йarendel fled from that Shipman dread
Beyond the dark earth’s pale,
Back under the rim of the Ocean dim,
And behind the world set sail; 36
And he heard the mirth of the folk of earth
And the falling of their tears,
As the world dropped back in a cloudy wrack
On its journey down the years. 40
Then he glimmering passed to the starless vast
As an islйd lamp at sea,
And beyond the ken of mortal men
Set his lonely errantry, 44
Tracking the Sun in his galleon
Through the pathless firmament,
Till his light grew old in abysses cold
And his eager flame was spent. 48
There seems every reason to think that this poem preceded all the outlines and notes given in this chapter, and that verbal similarities to the poem found in these are echoes (e.g. ‘his face is in silver flame’, outline C, p. 255; ‘the margent of the world’, outline E, p. 260).
In the fourth verse of the poem the Ship of the Moon comes forth from the Haven of the Sun; in the tale of The Hiding of Valinor (I.215) Aulл and Ulmo built two havens in the east, that of the Sun (which was ‘wide and golden’) and that of the Moon (which was ‘white, having gates of silver and of pearl’)—but they were both ‘within the same harbourage’. As in the poem, in the Tale of the Sun and Moon the Moon is urged on by ‘shimmering oars’ (I. 195).
II
The Bidding of the Minstrel
This poem, according to a note that my father scribbled on one of the copies, was written at St. John’s Street, Oxford (see I.27) in the winter of 1914; there is no other evidence for its date. In this case the earliest workings are extant, and on the back of one of the sheets is the outline account of Eдrendel’s great voyage given on p. 261. The poem was then much longer than it became, but the workings are exceedingly rough; they have no title. To the earliest finished text a title was added hastily later: this apparently reads ‘The Minstrel renounces the song’. The title then became ‘The Lay of Eдrendel’, changed in the latest text to ‘The Bidding of the Minstrel, from the Lay of Eдrendel’.
33 Then] And
38 And the falling of] And hearkened to
46–8 And voyaging the skies
Till his splendour was shorn by the birth of Morn
And he died with the Dawn in his eyes.
There are four versions following the original rough draft, but the changes made in them were slight, and I give the poem here in the latest form, noting only that originally the minstrel seems to have responded to the ‘bidding’ much earlier—at line 5, which read ‘Then harken—a tale of immortal sea-yearning’; and that ‘Eldar’ in line 6 and ‘Elven’ in line 23 are emendations, made on the latest text, of ‘fairies’, ‘fairy’.
‘Sing us yet more of Eдrendel the wandering,
Chant us a lay of his white-oared ship,
More marvellous-cunning than mortal man’s pondering,
Foamily musical out on the deep.
Sing us a tale of immortal sea-yearning 5
The Eldar once made ere the change of the light,
Weaving a winelike spell, and a burning
Wonder of spray and the odours of night;
Of murmurous gloamings out on far oceans;
Of his tossing at anchor off islets forlorn 10
To the unsleeping waves’ never-ending sea-motions;
Of bellying sails when a wind was born,
And the gurgling bubble of tropical water
Tinkled from under the ringйd stem,
And thousands of miles was his ship from those wrought her 15
A petrel, a sea-bird, a white-wingйd gem,
Gallantly bent on measureless faring
Ere she came homing in sea-laden flight,
Circuitous, lingering, restlessly daring,
Coming to haven unlooked for, at night.’ 20
‘But the music is broken, the words half-forgotten,
The sunlight has faded, the moon is grown old,
The Elven ships foundered or weed-swathed and rotten,
The fire and the wonder of hearts is acold.
Who now can tell, and what harp can accompany 25
With melodies strange enough, rich enough tunes,
Pale with the magic of cavernous harmony,
Loud with shore-music of beaches and dunes,
How slender his boat; of what glimmering timber;
How her sails were all silvern and taper her mast, 30
And silver her throat with foam and her limber
Flanks as she swanlike floated past!
The song I can sing is but shreds one remembers
Of golden imaginings fashioned in sleep,
A whispered tale told by the withering embers 35
Of old things far off that but few hearts keep.’
III
The Shores of Faлry
This poem is given in its earliest form by Humphrey Carpenter, Biography, pp. 76–7.11 It exists in four versions each as usual incorporating slight changes; my father wrote the date of its composition on three of the copies, viz. ‘July 8–9, 1915’; ‘Moseley and Edgbaston, Birmingham July 1915 (walking and on bus). Retouched often since—esp. 1924’ and ‘First poem of my mythology, Valinor……….1910’. This last cannot have been intended for the date of composition, and the illegible words preceding it may possibly be read as ‘thought of about’. But it does not in any case appear to have been ‘the first poem of the mythology’: that, I believe, was Йalб Йarendel Engla Beorhtast—and my father’s mention of this poem in his letter of 1967 (see p. 266) seems to suggest this also.
The Old English title was Ielfalandes Strand (The Shores of Elfland). It is preceded by a short prose preface which has been given above, p. 262. I give it here in the latest version (undateable), with all readings from the earliest in footnotes.
East of the Moon, west of the Sun
There stands a lonely hill;
Its feet are in the pale green sea,
Its towers are white and still,
Beyond Taniquetil 5
In Valinor.
Comes never there but one lone star
That fled before the moon;
And there the Two Trees naked are
That bore Night’s silver bloom, 10
That bore the globйd fruit of Noon
In Valinor.
There are the shores of Faлry
Readings of the earliest version:
1 East…..west] West….. East
7 No stars come there but one alone
8 fled before] hunted with
9 For there the Two Trees naked grow
10 bore] bear 11 bore] bear
With their moonlit pebbled strand
Whose foam is silver music 15
On the opalescent floor
Beyond the great sea-shadows
On the marches of the sand
That stretches on for ever
To the dragonheaded door, 20
The gateway of the Moon,
Beyond Taniquetil
In Valinor.
West of the Sun, east of the Moon
Lies the haven of the star, 25